Sunday, December 1, 2013

It's been a while since I've posted an editorial illustration on here. This was another for Time Out New York, in an article listing various memorials in the city. Originally the piece had the word Imagine floating in the sky,written in the typeface of
the Strawberry Fields memorial, but it clashed with the headline, and
was removed.

Having worked in production art for a while now, my work has slowly become more detailed and precise, so I wanted to try a style here that would allow me to work freelance projects into my busy schedule. Rather successfully, I was able to knock this out over the weekend and still maintain some semblance of work/life balance.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Ah, it's been a while since I've put a poster up here. This one is a tour poster for Los Angeles punk band, The Generators. I got the assignment while watching Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome at a bar. Immediately, the words "Post Apocalyptic Surf-Punks From Hell" came into my mind. It's a compelling phrase, and one I'm not entirely sure is out of my system yet.

I played with a little more texture and color movement than my previous poster work, and while it's an ongoing process, I'm intrigued by the results. I might be onto something here...

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Here is my character work from CityVille 2. The design specs called for a lot of people in business or government positions, so it was an interesting challenge designing a variety of characters wearing essentially the same uniform.

My time at Zynga has been characterized by a transition to a purely digital working process. These were all sketched straight into the computer via Cintiq monitor, then finished using Photoshop's vector tools.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Cityville 2 was a beast of a project. We wanted to push the narrative envelope for the "invest and express" genre, and work in an ironic, irreverent tone that had never been tried before on a 'Ville game. I worked on it for close to a year and a half, contributing in all areas of the 2D look of the game. I established the style for icons, items, and most proudly, the characters. I worked with a very talented and pedigreed group of designers, and they really let me have fun bringing their characters to life. The flexibility and trust they gave me was truly unparalleled.

Sadly, the game didn't live up to expectations. Some design experiments we made didn't pay off as we'd hoped, technical difficulties plagued us from the beginning, and its release was ultimately overshadowed by the colossal hit that was FarmVille 2. Still, I was thrilled and honored to work on such a quirky title, and with such amazing teammates. The lessons I learned working on CityVille 2 I will carry with me throughout my career.

I thought I'd begin with a few samples of work I did on FrontierVille. I came into the project well into live production, so it was more an exercise in adapting to established style and workflow than an act of creation on my part. These were by far the most complex illustrations I had done in vector up to that point, but I picked it up quickly, as you will see in my work from CityVille 2.

Wow. Already halfway through 2013? After extended hiatus (getting real busy at work, falling hopelessly behind on posting, losing my password, then waffling on promotion strategy) I'm finally getting back to blogging! I have amassed a fair amount of belated work to post, but in the interest of charging ahead, I'm just going to post a few highlights, then refocus on creating fresh, new artwork.

To recap the last 2 years, I switched projects at work from FrontierVille to CityVille 2, survived the closure of the Zynga's Baltimore office where I worked, and in the biggest piece of news, moved all the way across country from Maryland to San Francisco! I'm still with Zynga, but now working in the home office. It's been a huge change, but all very positive. I'm still new to the area, but I love it already. I plan on staying here for a long time to come.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

This is another illustration I did for Metro International. The article was a piece on the rise of nerd culture, and it's dominance in mainstream pop culture. It's a subject very near and dear to my heart, of course, and it was fun getting to come up with all the different geeky stuff I could put into a giant pile. In the distance, you can see the gathering storm, as jock culture rallies its troops for the inevitable backlash...

About Me

Jeff Lance is a freelance illustrator and recent transplant to San Francisco, California.
His artistic influences include punk rock,comics, animation, and all things retro. He is available for projects both large and small.
Clients have included Popular Mechanics, Time Out New York magazine, Metro International, Booz Allen Hamilton, PromoWest Productions, The Black Dahlia Murder, Hub City Stompers, Ruder Than You, the Charm City Roller Girls, and the Ohio Roller Girls.